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Monday, January 07, 2008

WESTERN SAHARA TALKS BEGIN AS MOROCCO IS CALLED ON TO END HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS

The third round of talks on the Western Sahara opened Monday. The United Nations-sponsored talks with representatives from Morocco and the Polisario Front included neighboring countries. It is the third time since June 2007 that the two parties have met in the presence of the UN Envoy for Western Sahara, Peter Van Walsum, to find a just, lasting and mutually-acceptable solution to the conflict.

As the session began Human Rights Watch called on Morocco to respect freedom of expression in the Western Sahara.

Yesterday, reports the Sahara Press Service, the Saharwi (Western Sahara) President, Mohamed Abdelaziz, called on the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, to intervene to protect Saharawis recent victims of repression in the occupied city of Smara, El Aaiun and Boujdour after peaceful demonstrations organised in these occupied cities. The demonstrations December the 26 called for the immediate release of a Saharawi human rights activist who was arrested and is imprisoned in Rabat. Forty Saharawis were wounded during the demonstrations, while many Saharawi houses were ransacked by the Moroccan police and army, Mr. Abdelaziz indicated in his letter to the UN’s Secretary General.

Meanwhile delegates from the POLISARIO Front have said that their organization will attend the third round of talks with a constructive spirit, the Moroccan government continues to insist that autonomy, not independence, is the maximum amount of sovereignty they are willing to allow.

The Polisario Front has warned that if the talks break down it might lead to a new round of violence.

The following is from Human Rights Watch.

Morocco: Allow Free Expression in Western Sahara

Negotiations on the future status of Western Sahara should be accompanied by serious commitments by the Moroccan government to respect freedom of expression in that territory, Human Rights Watch said today. The third round of UN-brokered talks between Morocco and the Polisario Front resumes on January 7, 2008 in Manhasset, New York.

Human Rights Watch recently concluded a two-week mission to Western Sahara and the refugee camps in Algeria controlled by the Polisario, the independence movement of Western Sahara’s indigenous Sahrawi people, to document human rights conditions in both places. Moroccan authorities bar most activities they consider advocacy for an independent Western Sahara, invoking provisions of Moroccan law that criminalize attacks on the country’s “territorial integrity.”

“Rabat claims the vast majority of the Sahrawi people favors Moroccan sovereignty in Western Sahara,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, director for the Middle East and North Africa for Human Rights Watch. “This claim would be more convincing if Morocco stopped muzzling those who peacefully advocate for an independent Western Sahara.”

Residents of what Morocco terms “the Southern Provinces” who publicly but peacefully agitate in favor of independence for the Western Sahara, or even in favor of a referendum that includes independence as an option, face administrative and police harassment and, on occasion, torture and imprisonment after unfair trials. Authorities refuse to legalize associations or public assemblies they consider pro-independence, and the police use excessive force to break up sit-ins and rallies.

“The taboo on debating the Western Sahara issue undermines the real progress Morocco has made elsewhere on human rights,” said Whitson. “People should have the same right to call for independence that they have to advocate Moroccan sovereignty.”

Human Rights Watch takes no position for or against independence for Western Sahara or on Morocco’s autonomy plan for the region. It urges states to respect their obligations under international human rights law, including the rights to peaceful expression, assembly and association.

Morocco, which annexed most of Western Sahara in the 1970s as Spain ended its colonial administration in that vast desert territory, is proposing that the region have a measure of autonomy under Moroccan sovereignty. The Polisario (formally known as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Saguia el Hamra and Rio de Oro) insists that a referendum for the people of the region be conducted that includes the option of independence. The United Nations classifies Western Sahara as a “non-self-governing territory.”

Moroccan authorities have said their proposed autonomy plan is a bold and generous initiative to satisfy the aspirations of the region’s population. However, in conversations with Human Rights Watch, officials made clear that under the plan, advocacy for independence (or for a referendum that includes independence as an option) will continue to be seen as an illegal attack on Morocco’s “territorial integrity.”

“Stopping people from debating one of the core issues concerning their future would overshadow any advances provided by Morocco’s autonomy plan,” said Whitson.

Human Rights Watch conducted a research mission from November 2 to November 13 to the Moroccan-administered portions of Western Sahara and to the Polisario-administered refugee camps in Tindouf, Algeria. The camps house tens of thousands of Sahrawis who fled the Moroccan-administered zone during Polisario-Moroccan fighting that lasted from 1975 until a 1991 UN-brokered ceasefire.

The researchers met in the Moroccan-administered areas with the governor of El-Ayoun and other officials, victims of human rights abuses, lawyers, human rights organizations, journalists, and victims of violence perpetrated by protesters. The Human Rights Watch delegation was able to move about freely; however, plainclothes police openly and frequently monitored their movements.

The researchers were also able to move about freely in the refugee camps in Algeria, where they interviewed Polisario officials, ordinary citizens, and representatives of nongovernmental and international organizations. They also interviewed victims of Polisario abuses.